Just Write {163}

Every day should begin
and end
with a mother’s kiss.

Should.

These days
when they are not
here,
my mother self is starved,
floating outside of me,
the hours
empty
of them.

I fit no place but nowhere
that’s how it feels.

So on those days
when I can only
give them a good morning and goodnight
prayer,
I hope they
feel
it.

I know I feel it.

So many years ago
there was a garbage dump,
in Ecuador
and when we pulled up
out came droves
of kids
from the garbage heaps
for bread.

We gave what we had
until it was gone

and it wasn’t enough.

A child should greet each day with a mother’s kiss
and then have her kiss at night.
A warm safe place, so much bread,
at least one home.

Mine have two.

They come to me and we hammer
away
all senses go
full throttle
all systems go
push pull
devouring.

We demand it.
More time, more loud, more Us.

So I’m standing,
sifting the spices into the flour,
but not to feed my three,
not today.
I’m pulling a fork through,

no sifting tool here.

What I can see are all kinds
of broken things,
pulling through
and I listen to Marc Cohn
for affect
cry

and we gave what we had and it wasn’t enough

Now I use what the tools of my own making

sifting,
and I can’t breathe.

I am willing to wait
for a miracle.
What else am I going to
do?*
While no place but nowhere.

:::::

My three children have two safe and warm and loving homes. They have an amazing Daddy. I wrote this on a night when they were with him, and it felt this way. It feels this way sometimes. I grabbed a pencil and notebook while making some food, because it felt this way right then. That’s free-writing, getting flour all over your notebook while you pour it out. I do believe in a mother’s kisses, in her presence being a balm, and I had no idea how hard divorce would be…but, I also believe in a father’s nurturing heart, and steadfast tender love, and my kids have that along with mine. I don’t write about all of this here very much, but sometimes when it’s time to free-write, it’s all I’ve got. Sometimes what seems like the very worst thing is still the right path, and trusting it while feeling like your mother self is screaming at you is hard. Our kids have made it clear that they felt the tension between us, and they continue to adjust miraculously to two homes, and split time. This comes, I think, with their resilience and the way we talk about it all, so much, and we tell them all the time,

You have two loving homes
Two parents who are crazy about you
and love to take care of you…
and what else?

YOU ALWAYS BELONG,
with both of us.

:::

*lyrics from Marc Cohn’s song Walk on Water

This is the 163rd installment of Just Write, an exercise in free writing your ordinary and extraordinary moments. {New here? Please see the details.} I would love to read your freely written words so join me and link up below. You can add the url of your post at any time. Just be sure it’s a link to your Just Write post, not to your main page. (Then link back to this post in your Just Write post so people know where to go if they’d like to join in.) (Any links not following those two guidelines will be deleted.)

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